Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 70

**Charlotte**

I look up at Blake, where he is still crouched in front of me, and the question slips out before I think too hard about it. "Can we go now?" His brow furrows. "Go where?" I blink at him. "Skating."

"The lake?" he asks, and I nod, biting my lip with excitement, but Blake's mouth flattens immediately. "No." I lower my eyes to the skates in my lap and curl my fingers a little tighter around the box. Stupid, Charlotte. "Oh." That's all that comes out, and I can hear it in my own voice—that tiny drop. Theo leans forward in the armchair and nudges Blake's arm with the toe of his shoe. "What if we went to the rink at school instead?" He shrugs one shoulder when everyone looks at him. "The figure skating girls have it booked out this weekend, but I'm sure if we asked, they'd let us split the ice." I look at Blake a little more carefully. "I don't see a problem with that at all," Mara says, sounding pleased by the idea. "If Charlotte feels up to it." I don't want to sound so desperate, but I mean, come on, you can't gift a girl new skates and then not allow her to use them. "I do."

"Then I think it's a lovely idea," she says. "You've got new skates. You should wear them somewhere proper." Theo points at her like she's just proved his point for him. "Exactly." Charlie, who has stayed mostly quiet through all of this, glances from me to Blake. "We could take patrol with us, right?" John folds his arms over his chest from where he's just stepped into the room and nods once. "We can spare a few." I sneak a glance at Blake and see the no from before has gone from his face. What remains is something more careful. Protective in a way that does not shut the door in the face of my dreams. "The rink is safer," he says.

His gaze holds mine for another second, and then he sighs before getting up. "Alright, we'll go to the rink." The smile that breaks over my face comes too fast to stop, and Mara claps her hands together once. "Right. Everyone needs coats. It's cold out there!" Charlie shifts out from under me with a low groan and stretches his back before nudging my shoulder lightly. "Excited?" He whispers, and I can't do anything other than nod quickly. Blake then offers me his hand without a word, and I take it. The second my fingers slide into his, that warm pull in my chest stirs again. His hand closes around mine, and he helps me to my feet.

We all get coats, boots and gloves. Charlie disappears upstairs for five minutes and comes back with a duffel slung over one shoulder, hockey sticks having appeared from nowhere. Blake has his own gear bag by the time I come back from changing, and Theo is already carrying skates over one shoulder. I pause at the bottom of the stairs for half a second to look at all of them. The movement. The noise. The strange ease of it. Yesterday I had nowhere to go and no one waiting for me. Now, half a pack is apparently escorting me to a rink because I want to skate. Mara catches me standing there, and her face softens. "You alright, sweetheart?” I nod. "Yeah." She steps in close enough to tug my coat straighter over my shoulders, then tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "Good."

The skate box is waiting near the front door. Blake reaches it before I do and picks it up automatically. Then we head out. The cold hits us straight away as we make our way to the car. There's a group of men, I assume, on patrol, splitting off toward the vehicles ahead and behind. Blake opens the passenger door for me before I can reach it myself, and he braces one hand on the roof while I climb in. When he shuts the door behind me, the world dulls pleasantly into heater hum and muffled outside sounds. A minute later, he slides into the driver's seat, while Charlie and Theo pile into the back. "Watch the sticks," Blake says without even turning around. Theo drops into the seat and grins at the back of his head. “Of course, your majesty." The engine starts, and we pull out with one car ahead of us and one behind. I sit with my gloves in my lap and the new skates boxed between my boots, watching the world go by through the window in pale strips of winter light, bare trees and snow along the roadside. Now and then, my eyes drop to the box again. I can't believe he got me new skates. They must have cost a lot of money. Blake's hand leaves the gear stick and settles briefly over mine, squeezing it before he lets go.

The school comes into view not long after, its buildings standing out against the white ground. We pull around the side to the rink structure. From the car, I can see the silvered roof and the high glass panels along one side, with pale light reflecting from them. My stomach flips. Theo leans forward between the seats. "You good, Lotty?" I turn around and smile, trying hard to cover my grin. "Yeah." Charlie snorts softly beside him. "She's about to vibrate out of her skin." He is not wrong, but I'm not about to admit that. We pull into the lot near the rink, and I stare out through the windscreen as Blake parks. Students' cars line one side, and a couple of girls in thick jackets and leggings are heading toward the entrance, skate guards in hand. Through the glass panels, I can already see the bright white stretch of indoor ice beneath the lights.

The engine cuts off, and Blake picks up the skate box, looks over at me, and says quietly, "Ready?” I look at the rink again, and somewhere under the nerves, the excitement, under all the strange aching fullness of the last twenty-four hours, something in me lifts its head as if it has just come home. "Yes," I whisper.